Swiss-German linguist whose comparative
studies of the Romance languages and the popular spoken Latin from which
they developed revolutionized Romance linguistics. Adhering to the tenets
of the Neogrammarian school of linguistics, he advocated rigorous research
methodology.

After teaching at the University of Jena
(1887-90), he joined the faculty of the University of Vienna, where he
remained until his appointment at the University of Bonn (1915). An important
early work was his historical-critical Italian grammar (1891). The work
that established his reputation as a comparativist, however, was the Grammatik
der romanischen Sprachen, 4 vol. (1890-1902; "Grammar of the Romance
Languages"). Most successful in methodology, Meyer-Lübke reached his
peak in the Einführung in das Studium der romanischen Sprachwissenschaft
(1901; "Introduction to the Study of Romance Linguistics"). He also published
a spate of manuals and monographs on Old Sardinian, Old Portuguese, Catalan,
and Romanian. His wide influence has continued to the present. In the 1960s
a number of his works were reissued, and a revision of his great Romanisches
etymologisches Wörterbuch ("Romance Etymological Dictionary"),
which was originally published between 1911 and 1920, appeared in 1968.